Today's Entrepreneurship Pulse
Pure DC secures $2.7B to expand data centre footprint in Europe and Middle East
London‑based data centre firm Pure DC has secured $2.7 billion to fund its expansion across Europe and the Middle East. The financing will support new sites and capacity growth for the company’s customers.
Also developing:
By the numbers: abcoffee raises $7.35M in pre‑Series B round
Alfalfa-Based Egg White Alternative Inches Closer to Market
Madison‑based startup Fudi Protein is scaling an alfalfa‑derived Rubisco ingredient to replace egg whites in foods. The company plans to launch its first farm‑based manufacturing line in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and is raising $250,000 via crowdfunding plus $1 million from venture investors to fund equipment and FDA GRAS filing. Rubisco delivers a complete protein with a PDCAAS of 1.0 and functional properties comparable to egg whites, positioning it as a cost‑competitive alternative amid whey shortages. The move follows Plantible Foods’ recent FDA “no‑questions” letter for duckweed‑derived Rubisco, signaling regulatory momentum for plant‑based proteins.
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CRYSTALLISING SUCCESS: Queen Bees Reshaping SA Beekeeping Industry
On World Bee Day, South Africa highlighted the rise of two women‑led beekeeping enterprises that are scaling operations and training other women. Lulu Letlape’s Bongi Bees grew from five to 100 hives and plans 500, while mentoring 40 women and handling...
Exclusive: Gabit Nets ₹36 Cr To Expand Wearables, Nutrition & Skincare Play
Gabit, a health‑tech startup founded in 2022, secured roughly ₹36.2 cr (about $3.7 million) from a group of angel investors in a pre‑Series A5 round. The capital was split into two tranches—₹16.6 cr in March and ₹19.6 cr in April—bringing its total funding to over...
Smorgasburg Co‑founder Deploys AI to Build ‘Forever House’ Management Platform
Jonathan Butler, co‑founder of Smorgasburg, built an AI‑driven construction‑management platform called Metalod to centralize documents for his 18‑24 month “forever house” build in Germantown, NY. After 25 hours of “vibe coding” and a $200‑monthly Claude subscription, Butler aims to turn...
Hark Lands $700 M Series A at $6 B Valuation to Build a Universal AI Personal‑assistant Platform
AI hardware startup Hark announced a $700 million Series A round led by Parkway Venture Capital, valuing the company at $6 billion post‑money. The round, backed by all four major U.S. chip makers and a slate of venture firms, will fund the launch...
How Pronto Is Turning Indian Homes Into Training Grounds for Its Investors’ Physical AI Vision
Pronto, the Indian home‑services platform, is piloting opt‑in video recordings of household tasks to create real‑world datasets for physical AI and robotics labs. The initiative, disclosed in a Glade Brook Capital memo, positions the company as a potential data layer...
Muybridge Raises $16M to Scale AI Imaging and Virtual Camera Technology
Muybridge announced a $16 million funding round to accelerate its software‑defined imaging platform, which creates virtual camera angles using dense 4K sensor arrays and real‑time GPU processing. The capital will fund expansion into Europe and the United States, grow its engineering...
ICYMI Fintech Funding Round-Up: Getquin, Synthetic, Jia, and More
FinTech Futures’ weekly ICYMI roundup highlights six funding deals across Europe and the United States, ranging from Getquin’s €12 million ($13 million) Series round to Synthetic’s $10 million seed and Checker’s $8 million stablecoin infrastructure raise. The capital is earmarked for AI‑driven product upgrades,...
Ex‑PE Salary $346K, Founder Launches Forta Makeup Brand After Burnout
Sarah Guller, a 25‑year‑old former growth‑equity analyst earning $346,000, left the corporate grind to co‑found Forta, a performance‑oriented makeup brand. After an eight‑month sabbatical, she and a former Stanford teammate raised a friends‑and‑family round and launched the line with a...
Can Astrotalk Build the Amazon of Spiritual Commerce?
Astrotalk, a Noida‑based astrology platform, is transforming into a full‑stack spiritual commerce ecosystem that links consultations, an online store, certified gemstones and upcoming offline outlets. Its ecommerce arm, launched in November 2024 with a $36,000 seed, posted roughly $17 million revenue...
QuberTech Secures Funding Boost for Solution that Promises to Turn Dandelions Into Sustainable Rubber
QuberTech, a UK biotech firm, announced a £3.4 million (≈$4.3 million) funding round to scale its engineered‑dandelion platform that produces natural rubber. The capital will fund field trials, greenhouse expansion, and a pilot processing line aimed at commercial‑scale output. The company positions...
UK AI Startup Scope Raises €17.3 Million Funding Led by Index Ventures to Speed up Industrial Inspection Workflows
London‑based AI startup Scope announced a €17.2 million ($20 million) Series A round led by Index Ventures to accelerate its inspection workflow platform for the testing, inspection and certification (TIC) market. The company says its AI‑driven solution reduces report generation time by...
Vbot’s Home Robotics Push Starts with a Quadruped Bot and RMB 500 Million in Funding
Chinese robotics startup Vbot, founded by former Horizon Robotics leader Yu Yinan, has closed a pre‑Series A round of roughly RMB 500 million ($73 million) led by Orient Renaissance Capital and others. The company launched its first consumer product, a quadruped robot, with the...
Anthropic Projects $10.9B Revenue and First Operating Profit in Q2
Anthropic announced to investors that it expects to more than double its second‑quarter revenue to about $10.9 billion and deliver an operating profit for the first time. The forecast, disclosed during a recent funding round, highlights a rapid shift toward sustainable...
I Built My Startup After Three Decades in Law. I Couldn’t Have Done It at 25
After three decades as a solicitor, barrister and academic, the author founded MiAI Law, a legal‑AI startup that tackles the cognitive overload of modern jurisprudence. Her extensive courtroom and research experience revealed that lawyers are asked to master a body...
Prelude Secures $20 Million Series A to Build AI‑Driven Trust Platform
Paris‑based Prelude closed a €17.2 million ($20 million) Series A round led by 20VC, adding investors such as Singular, Seedcamp, Deel and FDJ Ventures. The funding will fuel the rollout of its new Auth and Intel APIs, aiming to cut verification costs...
A Reality Check with Creator-Led News Brands: How to Make It on Your Own
Journalists with sizable followings are launching independent, creator‑led news brands, a trend highlighted by former BBC video chief Jonathan Paterson. A recent Newsrewired panel, featuring figures like Jim Waterson, revealed that building a solo outlet demands grueling 80‑hour weeks, lean...
What Most Founders Get Wrong When Choosing a Cofounder
Choosing a co‑founder often focuses on skills and résumé fit, yet research shows that 65% of startup failures arise from co‑founder conflict. The real danger lies in unexamined emotional responses, stress handling, and value alignment that surface only under pressure....
Humanly Lands $25 Million
In this 7‑minute episode of This Week in RegTech, host Chris Russell highlights recent funding milestones across the HR tech landscape, most notably Humanly’s $25 million Series B round. Humanly’s AI‑driven hiring platform streamlines conversational engagement for hourly and high‑volume recruiting, aiming...
Pivoting During COVID with Thomas Alflen
Oddity.ai’s co‑founder Thomas Alflen explains that product‑market fit is a spectrum, not a binary switch. Early pilots with Dutch public agencies proved the technology but exposed slow sales cycles and heavy on‑site operations. The COVID‑driven drop in public‑space incidents forced...
CircuitHub Secures $28M From Plural to Scale Cloud‑Style PCB Production
CircuitHub, the Cambridge‑based automated electronics factory, closed a $28 million Series A led by Plural. The funding will fuel the rollout of its “Grid” factories across the United States and Europe, aiming to bring cloud‑like economics to low‑volume printed‑circuit‑board production. The move...
From $1.5M Startup to Fintech Empire Powering Half of Brokers
She launched a $1.5M trading startup at 29—then built a multibillion-dollar fintech empire powering half of online brokerage accounts.
IDsure Raises €600K to Accelerate Digital ID Infrastructure for Maritime Sector
IDsure closed a €600,000 (US$695,427) seed round to digitize identity and credentialing for the global maritime sector. The funding will accelerate partnerships with flag states, training institutes and service providers, moving the industry away from paper certificates and manual checks....
Rethinking Capital As More Than Just Money
The article argues that capital is more than cash; it’s a partnership that can accelerate growth if the right investor is chosen. The author, co‑founder of RFJ, recounts how a capital partner’s culture and behavior during tough times mattered more...
Kickstarting For Good Opens 2026 Applications With Tripled Seed Funding and New Grants for Runner-Ups
Kickstarting for Good (K4G) has opened applications for its 2026 cohort, boosting seed funding to more than $1 million—up from roughly $330,000 in 2025. Graduates can receive between $10,000 and $100,000, with the chance to double any external capital through matching...
Hark Secures $700M to Build Next-Gen Personal AI
Today I'm excited to share that Hark has raised $700M at a $6B valuation When I use these AI models today, they feel basic. They should be able to listen and talk naturally, understand vision, retain persistent memory, and become deeply...
Figure AI's CEO Just Raised $700 Million for His Next Big Bet
Figure AI founder Brett Adcock launched Hark, a San Jose AI lab, and secured $700 million in a Series A round that values the startup at $6 billion. The round was led by Parkway Venture Capital with participation from Nvidia, AMD Ventures, Salesforce...
What’s Next — Co-CEOs Mark and Brett Levy on Two Decades of Success Running Blu Label Unlimited
South African ICT entrepreneurs Mark and Brett Levy have turned their high‑school electronics venture into Blu Label Unlimited, a multi‑billion‑rand (≈ $100 million) conglomerate. Under their co‑CEO leadership the firm rebranded from Blue Label Telecoms, acquired struggling mobile operator Cell C and...
The Path Raises $14.3M to Scale Clinically Guided AI Therapy Platform Across Mobile Ecosystems
The Path, formerly known as Mental, announced its emergence from stealth with a $14.3 million seed round led by Prime Movers Lab and backed by Tony Robbins, Apolo Anton Ohno, Deontay Wilder and Designer Fund. The AI‑driven therapy platform uses multiple specialized...
"Institutions Are Starting to Understand that Fresh Food Access Is Infrastructure"
Fork Farms, a Wisconsin‑based hydroponic company, now supports over 5,000 institutions across 50 states and 22 countries, producing nearly 2 million lb of fresh food each year at under $1 per pound. Schools, especially Milwaukee Public Schools with 86 Flex Farms, are...
Probiota Pioneer: ClostraBio on Spinnning Out the Single Bacterial Species Abundant in Non-Allergic Individuals
ClostraBio is commercializing CLB101, a next‑generation probiotic derived from the strict anaerobe Anaerostipes caccae, which directly produces butyrate in the lower gut. The strain achieved GRAS self‑affirmation in June 2025 after extensive safety testing and has been scaled up through a...
Contrario Launches AI‑agent Recruiting Platform with $6M ARR and $2.3M Seed Round
San Francisco startup Contrario unveiled its AI‑agent recruiting platform, announcing a $6 million annualized revenue run rate, a $2.3 million seed round led by Nexus Venture Partners, and over 200 client companies. The founders say the hybrid model pairs expert recruiters with...
Trust Beats Capital: Founders Choose Partners Over Funds
The question I have been asking myself and every founder I meet is the same one: What is your right to win? It sounds simple. It is not. The right to win is not a fixed asset. It is something you...
Solo AI Founder Scales to $80M Exit Without Funding
In 2025, a solo founder named Maor Shlomo built an AI-coded startup alone in 6 months, 300K users, and a $3.5M ARR. Wix bought it for $80M in cash without raising a seed round or hiring engineers. THIS is why...
August Robotics Raises $30M in Series B Funding for Autonomous Construction Robotics
August Robotics announced a $30 million Series B round led by Big Pi Ventures, with participation from Blackbird, Skip Capital, Tanarra, Future Family Office and GS Futures. The capital will accelerate AI development, new autonomous drilling robots, and scale production for construction...
Idea Stolen, Still Built $44M ARR SaaS
Mark Abbott openly shared his SaaS idea. A competitor stole it and launched 12 months ahead. He still built Ninety io to $44M ARR: "Could I be an investor? Came back and said, no. So I actually started as EOS compatible in...
Munich-Based ClearOps Raises €8.6 Million Series A to Build AI Operating System for Industrial After-Sales
Munich‑based ClearOps closed a €8.6 million (≈$9.4 million) Series A round led by Hitachi Ventures to scale its AI‑driven after‑sales platform for industrial OEMs. The startup connects manufacturers, dealers, service partners and machines on a single operating system that predicts parts demand, coordinates...
Your Backyard Called. It Wants Rental Income.
In this episode of the Liquid Launch Project, host Matthew Armahan and co‑host Luigi Rosa Bianco sit down with ADU specialist Gil Weissman to unpack the surge of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) across the United States, especially the West‑to‑East trend....
Digital Sovereignty, and Onchain Verification Trends to Watch with Xin Yan
Sign, a sovereign‑grade digital infrastructure firm co‑founded by Xin Yan, has secured $55 million in funding and reached a $1.3 billion valuation. Its suite—including the Sign Protocol and TokenTable—provides on‑chain verification, digital ID and tokenized asset services to governments such as the...
Community-Led SaaS Growth: How Ninety Hit $44M ARR
In this episode, Omer Khan interviews Mark Abbott, founder of Ninety, a SaaS platform built around the EOS framework that helps leadership teams align on vision, planning, performance metrics, and execution. Abbott recounts how he spent years becoming a certified...
Quartermaster Secures $43M Series A to Deploy SmartMast Hive‑Mind for Ships
Arlington‑based Quartermaster closed a $43 million Series A, co‑led by First Round Capital and Quiet Capital, to scale its SmartMast sensor suite. The funding will accelerate a distributed “hive‑mind” that equips hundreds of vessels with real‑time maritime data, challenging the aging...
Sunnova’s Former CEO Is Bullish on Rooftop Solar Repair
Former Sunnova CEO John Berger has launched Otovo, a subscription‑based rooftop‑solar repair service, and reached 30,000 customers within three months. Two‑thirds of those users pay recurring fees of $9‑$49 per month for round‑the‑clock maintenance of solar, battery and generator systems....
Arctic Game Launches Six-Month Incubation Model for Indie Studios
Arctic Game unveiled a six‑month incubation program designed to push indie studios from prototype to market‑ready release. The model responds to publishers demanding early traction, community engagement, and validated market fit before committing financing. Participants must enter with a working...
Echelon Philippines – From Niche to Necessity: What Kindred Health Teaches Us About Building Tech for Filipino Users
Kindred Health, a women‑focused health tech startup, detailed its strategy for building an omnichannel platform tailored to Filipino users during a fireside chat with Echelon Philippines. The company starts with extensive consumer research, using focus groups to pinpoint real pain...
Exclusive: Jewelry Startup Giva Set to Raise $28 Mn Debt
Omnichannel jewelry startup Giva is raising Rs 270 crore (≈$28 million) in a multi‑tranche debt round led by BlackSoil Capital, with participation from InCred Credit Fund, Stride Ventures and Nuvama Crossover Yield Opportunities Fund. The debt carries a fixed 13.4% annual interest rate...
From Byju’s, Koo to Bluelearn: 7 Indian Startups that Went From Hype to Layoffs and Shutdowns
India’s startup boom produced several high‑profile companies that later stumbled as funding dried up and governance issues emerged. Giants such as Byju’s, Koo, GoMechanic, Trell, Dunzo, Mojocare and Bluelearn experienced massive layoffs, accounting scandals, or outright shutdowns after rapid expansion....
Plant-Based Seafood Startup Oshi Nets $3M in Funding After Fourfold Growth in Sales
Oshi, a plant‑based seafood startup known for 3D‑printed vegan salmon, secured $3 million from a leading Latin American seafood company and launched a WeFunder crowdfunding round. The financing supports a new production facility, distribution hub, and the rollout of a whitefish...
Cercli Launches Cera AI Hiring Agent to Accelerate Global Talent Acquisition
Cercli introduced its Cera AI hiring agent worldwide, promising to automate core recruiting functions and reduce the 20‑hour weekly administrative burden on recruiters. Backed by $12 million in funding, the UAE‑based startup targets high‑growth firms in the US, Europe and MENA,...
Tradeify Launches Slay Markets Brokerage with Exclusive NinjaTrader Clearing Deal
Tradeify Brokerage LLC introduced Slay Markets, a new retail futures brokerage, and sealed an exclusive clearing agreement with NinjaTrader Clearing LLC. The partnership lets Tradeify focus on trader experience while NinjaTrader provides regulated infrastructure, marking the prop firm’s first foray...
BriefCatch Hires Former Rezilion COO Yoel Lavie to Drive Legal‑tech Growth
BriefCatch announced Yoel Lavie as its new chief operating officer. Lavie, a former Rezilion COO and practicing M&A attorney, will oversee scaling after the startup’s recent Series A funding, WordRake acquisition and launch of its RealityCheck verification tool.